The invention relates generally to multifinger electrical contact members, such as that used in potentiometers.
One commonly used method of producing multifinger contacts of the type used in potentiometers is to wind conductive wire about a drum, plate and selectively remove the plating to produce a plurality of severable brush blanks, each having a plated portion serving as a base interconnecting individual finger portions. This practice necessarily involves several complicated and expensive steps. Another approach used to produce multifinger contacts is to merely slot a sheet of conductive material to provide a plurality of individual contact members separated by a relatively large space between adjacent edges. Understandably, this product will not practically produce a dense arrangement of individually flexible fingers as is required for microminiature environments, such as in potentiometers. Straight shearing of fingers from one another has been found to produce unacceptable contact members because the fingers will not flex independently since they will remain in substantial lateral contact with each other.